Spraying Messages in Egypt *Grade This :)

Scrolling through news sites over the past week, I came across this article from the Daily Beast. According to the article, a group of female artists in Cairo are spreading messages of equality through street art. For the country, this is quite a revolutionary concept. Bright and colorful spray paint works of art convey messages such as empowering women by increasing their visibility throughout the city. This idea stems from the Women on Walls (WOW) project, which uses graffiti and street art to talk about women. The campaign aims to illustrate the daily struggles of Egyptian women, ultimately encouraging better treatment and women's rights.

While reading about this project, I found it interesting that graffiti was used to portray such important messages. Graffiti, an illegal art, is not something that I would typically think of to become a form of resistance in a country plagued by dictatorship and an unfinished revolution, especially for women's rights. I enjoyed reading about WOW, however, because I admire its attempt to become an alternative media source. When I picture graffiti, I usually imagine art portraying gangs and other illegal activities. I appreciate WOW's ability to bust multiple stereotypes, including the stereotypes of both graffiti and the inferiority of women.

This unique approach is important to recognize because it demonstrates the power of aesthetics in terms of changing gender roles and women's rights. The radicalness of WOW is inspiring to many around the world, including myself. The messages of WOW have brought artists together to increase awareness and positively portray women in a public sphere. In an area like Egypt, where women are constantly treated as secondary roles in society, publicly depicting what is wrong in society can help address the issues and ultimately promote change.

I hope that as readers, you can admire this work and it sparks thoughts and conversations for yourselves about the role of gender in our society. Please reply to this blog post with any comments, I would love to hear your thoughts! 

Gender and Identity through Hamlet

In English class, we are currently reading the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. The tragic play dramatizes the revenge of Prince Hamlet on his uncle Claudius for murdering Hamlet's father, the King. Hamlet's father is also the brother of Caludius, who ends up taking both the throne and as his wife Gertrude, the old king's widow and Prince Hamlet's mother. Through the study of this play, I have learned to examine different critical approaches to various aspects of the play. There are unique, dynamic and mysterious female characters that play a critical role in Hamlet. It is for this reason that I found the feminist approach to Hamlet quite interesting. 

One specific question that feminist critics ask that intrigues me is: How is the work "gendered"? More specifically, how does it seem to define femininity and masculinity? By analyzing the play in this light, I found myself relating the idea of gender and identity to aesthetics and appearance. 

In today's society, much of gender and identity revolves around appearance. Men and women are expected to dress in a specific way to portray their gender appropriately. In turn, individuals are deemed "odd" and often outcasted for not following specific underlying gender roles of society, especially in terms of appearance. In theory, men and women have the freedom to portray themselves in any way they like. However, in reality, following social norms often hinders them from doing so. 

In Hamlet, the character Ophelia demonstrates the complexity of gender and identity. Ophelia is portrayed as an inferior character, controlled by the men around her. Ophelia is manipulated by Hamlet, who pursues her as a lover. Therefore, Ophelia represents the gender roles of society through her appearance as a weak character. Ophelia is portrayed as a feminine character through her appearance and props, such as her flowers. 

Ophelia is portrayed as a feminine character, as shown in this picture.

Ultimately, the idea of gender portrayed through femininity and masculinity is apparent throughout multiple generations, from the time of Shakespeare to current day. It is important to recognize this in order to realize how social norms play a role in our identity, especially through aesthetics and appearance. As readers, I would like you to ask yourselves: how do you define gender? How do aesthetics and appearance help to determine and identify gender? Does appearance limit gender? 

The New and REAL Queen Bee: Lorde and Reasons Why I Love Her

Over the past few weeks, I've been frequently listening to Lorde. A Grammy award winning 17 year old from New Zealand, she has more accomplishments than I probably will achieve in my lifetime. Yet the current spotlight on Lorde seems to be focusing on all aspects EXCEPT her talents. Media outlets deem her as "weird" and "awkward." Twitter posts and other social media sites bash her appearance and harshly respond to her Asian boyfriend. Sure, Lorde dresses like a witch. Sure, she doesn't embody a typical teenage cheerleader. But is that really important? It seems as though most critics are ignoring the parts of Lorde that I enjoy the most. The fact that she's unique. The fact that she's unbelievably talented. The fact that she's comfortable in her own "awkward" body. Lorde is a role model.

(Lorde performing at The Grammy's)

Lorde embraces her youth and gender. She shows her fans and critics that she's very different from her peers, in the best way possible. In addition, Lorde sticks up for what she believes in. A few months ago, Lorde risked controversy by critiquing pop star Selena Gomez's song, "Come and Get It." She is quoted saying, "I’m a feminist and the theme of her song is, 'When you’re ready, come and get it from me.' I’m sick of women being portrayed this way." Lorde stood by her comments, affirming that she has no problem with expressing her morals and opinions. 

Too often, girls and women lack the confidence to express themselves. Strong women are viewed as "controlling" while men are viewed as "powerful." This double standard is an issue that needs to be addressed in society, and Lorde is taking steps to combat this stereotype. Her power as a young female in the media industry should be viewed as admirable. Lorde is real. She's raw and pure. Her refreshing viewpoints are necessary in today's media industry, seeing as the roots of the industry lie within aesthetics and appearance instead of talent and personality. The world needs a figure like Lorde to be able to connect with. So, I applaud and thank Lorde for her actions towards empowering women.

The Ugly Truth About Society

Recently, I turned on the television and a woman appeared on the screen wearing nothing but a bikini and high heels. With makeup piled on her face and a can in her hand, she was “advertising” for an energy drink. Switching the channel, a muscular man appeared without a shirt and was holding a pack of deodorant. Unfortunately, this scenario is common. 

(Example of advertisement objectifying women) 

To me, the most frequent and significant examples of sexism occur within our media today. Subtle messages in advertisements like these have the power to influence how we view both ourselves and other individuals. Such messages are often misrepresentations of society and negatively impact our perceptions of beauty and appearance for both males and females. 

Today, the media frequently sexualizes women in order to sell products. In doing so, the average female believes that she must fit a specific stereotype in order to be accepted in society. According to “Miss Representation,” a non-profit campaign and media organization created to develop awareness about the misrepresentation of women in the media, “The number of cosmetic surgical procedures performed on youth 18 or younger more than tripled from 1997 to 2007.” 

Clearly, the media holds a significant amount of power in establishing gender roles within society. Trust me, I understand how easily it is to succumb to advertisements and other aspects of the media. I remember recently flipping through a magazine and commenting how “perfect” Emma Stone looked in her advertisement for Revlon Products. Despite the amount of airbrush and Photoshop techniques that went into the advertisement, I allowed myself to fall into the trap and compare myself to an unrealistic image. 

In order to resolve the misrepresentations and establish equality for men and women through the media, we must improve our media literacy. We cannot buy into what the media believes we should look, act or feel like. We must honor positive advertisements and other forms of media in order to limit the role that negative advertisements and media play in our lives. 

Reflection on Blogging

The first half of senior year has been quite a whirlwind tour. New teachers, new classes, new assignments, new whatever, it all seems so bizarre to me now. In the big scheme of things, 6 months is only a sliver. Yet, now that I'm processing everything, I cannot believe how much I've learned within this tiny fraction of time. Thinking, writing, deleting, and rewriting, I spent an unbelievable amount of time over the semester writing my blog posts. Whether I was developing a specific theme in my blog post to hold onto a moment with rich language, or I was searching for relative articles, videos and other forms of media, I learned a lot about myself, my writing, and even my learning during the blogging process. Surely, I didn't accomplish this process overnight, but I'm thankful that I had the opportunity to embark on such a journey with my writing. 

Blogging and I have a quite complicated relationship. Some days, I rush home to write a blog post. Filled with insightful thoughts, I can't wait to log on and write a post. Other days, I dread the idea of finding a topic to blog about. As I reflect on my blog writing process, I realize that my beginning thoughts as a blogger were ineffective to the writing process because I tried to write in a formal, typical "English class" way. However, I later realized that blogs are different in the sense that they must connect to a variety of forms of media, and incorporate more of my own personal thoughts. Over the course of the semester, however, I believe that my writing improved significantly in terms of blogging. Through blogging, I have learned to connect ideas from English class to outside sources and issues, as well as developed my own personal identity as a blogger my incorporating my own beliefs and thoughts into the posts. 

One example of connecting ideas from English class to outside sources and issues is from my blog post, "Beautiful Doesn't Mean Perfect." In the post, I connected empathy to the perception of beauty in society. According to my blog post, "As we discussed in my English class, empathy is important to learn for developing relationships in a multitude of situations. Promoting the acceptance of people with special needs and combating the idea of perfection increases empathy by provoking reflection, as the video above illustrates by showing a wide range of reactions from people as they walk by the store front." 

Another example of my improved writing through blogging and developing my own personal identity as a blogger is from my blog post, "More Than Meets the Eye." In this post, I talked about my personal experience on a retreat I attended, called Kairos. By discussing my personal experiences and relating them to important ideas like aesthetics and appearance, I improved my blog post writing. According to my blog post, "As I write this post today, I find it interesting to notice how big of a role appearance plays in our lives and what I can do to change this so that emotional health and forming relationships with others outweighs aesthetics and appearance." This illustrates my improvement as a writer and development of my own identity. I believe it is important to develop an identity as a blogger in order to connect with your readers at a more personal level. 

Ultimately, I believe that blogging has been a great learning opportunity for myself as a writer. While the beginning of my thinking during the blogging was very ineffective, ultimately I realized that I couldn't think like how I usually do when I write. I've grown accustom to writing things such as research papers and essays, but I needed to learn more about how to blog. When I finally realized that I was going to need to go about my writing process differently as a blogger, everything shifted and fell into place. In the next semester, I hope to continue to improve my blogs and further my learning as a writer by more deeply analyzing both other cultures, texts, various media forms and myself in order to develop my understanding of aesthetics and appearance. 

Word Count: 697 

Beautiful Doesn't Mean Perfect

Scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed the other day, I came across a post from a friend titled, "Because Who Is Perfect?" Intrigued, I decided to examine this further. The video below comes from Pro Infirmis, an organization for the disabled. The group created a series of mannequins based on real people with physical disabilities in attempt to raise awareness for people with special needs.  

As a fashion lover, I immediately related to the impact of the industry on aesthetics and appearance. With smooth, plastic bodies lining the windows in nearly every retail store, our perception of beauty is incredibly skewed. I'm sure that many of my readers can relate to the internal and external pressures we face to look "perfect," whatever that even means. I found that this project is important to recognize because of its efforts to include body diversity, thus abandoning the "cookie cutter" mentality of beauty in terms of weight, height, body type and age. 

As an English student, I saw the relationship between this video and some of the essential questions we are discussing in class. Specifically, I related it to the question, "how do we understand others' experiences?" Using the idea of empathy, this project from Pro Infirmis allowed me to notice and value the struggles individuals with disabilities face, as well as the pressure that the media places on people to be perfect. As we discussed in my English class, empathy is important to learn for developing relationships in a multitude of situations. Promoting the acceptance of people with special needs and combating the idea of perfection increases empathy by provoking reflection, as the video above illustrates by showing a wide range of reactions from people as they walk by the store front. 

As readers, I hope that you found this video interesting and take some time to reflect on the power of empathy. Typically, those who are able to feel empathy towards others have more successful and caring relationships where communication about emotions is prevalent. I know that empathy has many pros and cons, which is why I would love to hear your thoughts on a few of the questions that were raised for me when discussing empathy in class and delving further into it with this blog post. 

• What does empathy do to us? What does empathy do for us?
• How does empathy impact our identity?
• Is it possible to be too empathetic?
• How does appearance shape our identity?
• What does perfection mean to you?

Through the Veil

In my English class, we are reading a memoir called "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi. With a group of Islamic women, Azar Nafisi teaches forbidden Western classics and explores the connections between the characters in the novels and the Islamic women. This powerful memoir demonstrates the tyranny in Iran coinciding with the liberating literature.

"Reading Lolita in Tehran" heavily discusses the role of appearance in the lives of Iranian women. Nafisi, the author, was fired from the University of Tehran for refusing to wear a veil. Through her book group, Nafisi allows the women to shed their mandatory veils and robes, loosen their hair and relax without the oppressive nature of the Revolutionary Guard, who constantly criticize women for their appearance. In both "Persepolis,"a movie we watched for both Social Studies and English, as well as "Reading Lolita in Tehran," women are punished for wearing colorful socks, as they are seen as "sexually appealing," a threat in Islamic culture. Listening to the perspective of Islamic women on the veil has opened my eyes to the complexity of the veil debate.

Currently, politicians across the world are discussing where women should be allowed to wear veils. This controversy brings up a multitude of questions and viewpoints. While some view the veil as limiting, other see it as empowering. The cloth is assigned so many different roles in society that it is difficult to understand its true purpose. From Texas to Paris, the veil has gained prominence and been the center of attention of court rulings, workplace issues, and debates on whether or not it should be banned.

Ultimately, it is important to recognize both viewpoints in the veil debate in order to better understand why such controversy has been brought to the floor in the first place. Many non-Muslims involved in the debate view the veil has a symbol of repression. This idea is especially prominent in societies like Iran and Saudi Arabia, where women have second class status to men. Many Muslim women, however, believe that by wearing the veil they are following God's wish. In addition, many Muslims believe that wearing the veil is a way of staying true to their culture and rejecting Western temptations.

An Islamic girl protests her right to wear the veil.

I have found it difficult for myself to pick a specific view on the veil debate because I am not familiar with what it is like to wear a veil. I cannot even imagine what it is like to have restrictions on what I wear, especially from a government source. As readers, I hope that you have learned more about the impact of veiling. I would like to hear your thoughts on the veil debate and question "To what extent does our appearance impact who we are?"